In a news briefing Wednesday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the U.S. government is “hopeful” that it can achieve the “major disarmament” of North Korea within the next “2 1/2 years, something like that.” However, he also said that no deadline had been set.

As his news briefing at the Hilton Hotel in Seoul, South Korea, was wrapping up, Pompeo stopped to answer one last question about the time frame for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

When pressed about whether the administration had set a deadline for North Korea, Pompeo clarified, “We’re hopeful we get it done.

Reporters asked Pompeo why the phrase “complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization,” which had been used by the Trump administration before the summit, was not in the final document signed by President Donald Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.

When asked how exactly the denuclearization of North Korea would be verified, Pompeo said that “the modalities are beginning to develop.